


Five Children Daniel Jackson Never Had

by winterover



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: sg1_five_things, F/M, Gen, offscreen mentioned major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-10 23:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterover/pseuds/winterover
Summary: Scenes that never were, but nearly could have been. Five canon-divergence AUs.





	Five Children Daniel Jackson Never Had

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal on March 25th, 2009. Slight edits made.
> 
> I have a vague idea this may have either been written for or inspired by a prompt on the sg1_five_things community, but if it was, that prompt is lost to the sands of time.

**Five Children Daniel Jackson Never Had**

 

*

 

**Sam ban-Arrom**

 

_Though everyone had thought they were foolish - and maybe they were - his friends had never quite given up hope, and one day, they were vindicated. But SG-1 arrived eight years too late._

_There was no Daniel...not really. There was a man named Arrom, dressed in indigo, his hair shaggy and sun-streaked and falling into blue eyes which squinted suspiciously at the newcomers to the city. His pretty, dark-haired, olive-skinned wife was at his left side, silently and warily taking everything in. His daughter, a sweet and curious mix of the both of them, was at his right. Seeing them, Sam's heart twisted at the memory of the day she'd met Daniel Jackson, and of another pretty dark-haired woman he'd once held protectively against him in much the same way._

_"Here," she said, digging through her pack and coming up with a hard brown plastic case - one she'd carried on missions with her for years, off and on, just to be prepared. Most people didn't know she did. Those who did know had long since stopped mentioning it._

_She flipped it open, and handed the man a pair of eyeglasses. "These belong to you," she explained, as he looked down at them in confusion. "Put them on and you'll understand."_

_He did, blinking around at what she assumed were his vastly sharpened surroundings, at his wife's face, at his daughter's. The little girl giggled, and he smiled, touching her fondly on the cheek. "Wow. That's...different." He looked back at Sam, then, with cautious gratitude in his expression. "Thank you."_

_"You're welcome," Sam said gently, and she exchanged a meaningful look with Teal'c, one that spoke eloquent volumes, that spanned the years of sadness and hope and quiet longing they'd both endured. But they knew what they had to do. The right thing - even if it hurt._

_She thought, as she looked back over her shoulder and Teal'c, close beside her, brushed his arm and the back of his hand against hers, that if he had still existed, he would have wanted them to do this. Arrom had a life, here, now, and he was happy - truly happy, it seemed, and how could they deny him that? A new family, new concerns, new interests, a new community who had come to accept and embrace him. They left Arrom, and he never remembered. But Daniel Jackson's friends never forgot._

_When they came back a few months later, they found the GDO they'd given him, just in case, nestled in a clay jar at the base of the DHD. The tribe had moved on, and he had moved with them. They didn't see him again._

*

While Colonel Carter and her team do a look-over of the ruins and chit-chat with the locals - Quinn doing most of the chatting, no doubt, while the Colonel and Captain Hailey buzz around doing tests and surveys and Teal'c does whatever he does to silently and effectively freak people out - SG-12 stays near the Stargate, keeping watch. If SG-1 needs backup, they're here. Otherwise, they just keep their eyes and ears open. The UAV survey earlier hadn't turned up any signs of intelligent life except for the cluster of nomads camping out inside the city walls, so they aren't expecting anything much - just a pleasant, laid-back mission, a walk in the proverbial park with a light breeze blowing and the fresh tang of an alien autumn in the air.

_Funny,_ Major Collins thinks, _how fall smells the same on every planet._

Suarez seems to think along the same lines. "Feels just like October back home, sir," he says with a grin. "Just with more alien hamster-pigs."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Collins retorts. "I got chased one Halloween night by somethin' suspiciously like those hamster-pigs, must be thirty years ago."

"Where was this, sir?"

"This was Montpelier, Vermont. It scared the bejeezus out of me. I never went trick-or-treating again."

"We need to sweep the area, sir," his 2IC MacDougall gently reminds him, as is her way. "For hamster-pigs," she adds, straight-faced, though her eyes are twinkling.

Major Collins rolls his eyes good-naturedly and nods to them. "Maintain a secure perimeter, fifty meters' radius from the gate."

"Yes, sir." The team starts to fan out, but at the sound of snapping twigs and crunching leaves a second later, they wheel around, weapons raised in automatic precision. But it's just a little girl, about seven or eight, dressed in blue robes that sweep the forest floor and catch on the dry branches. She's clutching a woven bag of what looks like acorns and staring at the soldiers with open curiosity but, oddly, nothing resembling fear. Collins lowers his weapon, and after another nod from him, his team follows suit.

"It's just a kid," he murmurs.

"Hello," the girl says, her eyes wide.

Collins smiles at her, trying to look friendly and non-threatening. He's got a truckload of little nieces and nephews; he knows how to deal with kids. "Hey, there. Do you live in that city over there?"

"Yes. Not all the time, though." She regards them quietly, tucking a strand of her windblown brown hair behind one ear. She's cute, with chubby cheeks and round brown eyes which focus on each member of SG-12 in turn with obvious fascination.

"That's a coincidence - we're just visiting your city for the first time. What's it called?"

"I don't know. It had a name a long time ago but it doesn't have one now." She looks around at all of them, assessing, analyzing. Pretty deep for someone that young. "Are you travelers, too? I've never seen anyone dressed like you."

"We are." He gestures towards the gate. "We came through that big ring. It's a type of, uh, transportation...device. Uh -"

"The Stargate," replies the kid, nodding. The Major blinks in surprise.

"You know that word? You call it the Stargate?" He raises an eyebrow at MacDougall, who just shrugs, bemused. It's usually something flashy or fussy like 'Eternal Ring of Mystical Power', or else something damn near unspellable, like 'Chappa'ai'. But 'Stargate' - yeah, he'd say that's relatively new.

"My father calls it that. My mother, and the others, they call it the Chappa'ai. But I like 'Stargate' better." She hoists her bag higher up on her shoulder, dropping a few of her acorns in the process, though she doesn't seem to notice. "There's a thing near it, and when you push panels on it a pool of shiny water appears. My father knows how. We don't go through though, because we don't know where it goes or how to come back." Her words tumble endearingly over each other in her eagerness to get them out. "Is that how you came here? Through the water? Nobody's ever come through before."

"Yes. Yes, it is." He cocks his head. "Hey, um - I'm Major Collins. This is Captain MacDougall, Lieutenant Suarez, Lieutenant Seymour. What's your name?"

"Sam."

A rather _Tau'ri-sounding_ name, Collins reflects. In fact, they happen to have a Tau'ri with that very name in their party right now. And the odds of that...? "Well, it's nice to meet you, Sam. Do you think you could introduce us to your father?"

"Okay," Sam says. "Follow me."

 

**Mehet-uret**

 

_They were ambushed three klicks from the gate, the mud sucking at their boots and making it hard to maneuver, but they came out on top in the end. They usually did. The skirmish left Jack with a minor staff weapon burn - more of a graze, really - on his arm, though, and Carter with a twisted knee, and a whole lot of dead Jaffa and spent ammo littering the boggy ground._

_"One of these things is not like the others," Jack murmured, touching his arm with a grimace and looking down at the nearest body, and Teal'c carefully turned it over with the butt of the staff weapon he'd killed it with. A woman, in decorative gold armor over silk robes, her long brown hair singed and her lashes brushing her white mud-streaked cheeks. She'd been shot squarely through the neck. Teal'c nudged at the ribbon device winding around her right hand, the gold stained here and there with smears of blood and dirt._

_"Goa'uld. Her Jaffa bear the emblem of Hathor, but I do not recognize her. She is most likely one of Hathor's newer generals."_

_She looked so young. Jack tamped the thought down, mercilessly. "Yeah, well. It doesn't matter now. What matters is she's dead, and a crapload of Hathor's goons along with her." Jack barely suppressed a shudder, and resisted the urge to unzip his vest and reach under the front of his shirt, just to reassure himself. Nothing. He was fine. Fine. **God, even after all these years...** "You think the snake's still lurking in there somewhere?"_

_Teal'c shook his head, drawing his weapon back and holding it a few inches up out of the sludge. "No - judging by the placement of the wound, the symbiote has been incinerated by the blast." Teal'c looked at Carter, who had come slogging painfully over, and she nodded in acquiescence. Daniel gave the dead woman an oddly cursory glance, then turned away to help bind Carter's knee up for the messy walk back. Jack pulled the ribbon device off the body, wrapped it in a section of torn-off silk and stuffed it in his pack - another trinket for the scientists to play with, a little something more for their arsenal, the tiniest measure of help in a lopsided war that seemed to have no end in sight. And SG-1, slightly the worse for wear, headed toward the gate, silently congratulating themselves on a relatively fruitful mission and looking forward to a long hot shower, a few Aspirin, a beer and a few hours' sleep._

_Or at least, Jack was. He hated to admit it, but he was getting too damn old for shenanigans like this._

*

One of her children survives. Only one of dozens - but one is enough. She carries it with her, through the Chappa'ai, curled warm and safe in her womb - her host's womb - and when she returns to her stronghold, she releases it into the maturation tank and watches it swim, tapping her fingers lazily against the glass. She smiles.

The Great Lady Hathor has taken pleasure from many hundreds of beloved ones and borne many children over the years. A few survived to maturity and took hosts of their own, became minor players in the endless power struggles that constitute the civilization of the Goa'uld, but even they are dead now. None of them ever lasted long. They were, regrettably, weak - not like her. Not worthy to be called true children of Hathor, the Great One, the Mother of all pleasure.

Which is why she is pleased at this one's rapid growth and strength, and pleased when the day comes for the symbiote, her child, to take a Jaffa host. It thrives, and several years after that, though it is still young, it is ready to take a host of its own. Lines of captured humans are brought to the palace and paraded before it, and one in particular finds favor and is brought before Hathor for inspection. A slender young woman, with smooth limbs and firm breasts, dirt-colored hair and blue eyes that are wet and wide with fear. Hathor smiles at her consternation, running a long sun-red fingernail gently down the side of her pale face, then tilts her head and frowns slightly. Something...

Beside her, her child's Jaffa shifts uneasily. "My lady."

A long-buried memory, perhaps, or a resemblance to one she knew before. Hathor has had a long life; these half-remembrances happen from time to time. They are not worth her time or further effort of thought, and so she ignores them. She drops the girl's chin and takes a step back as the symbiote writhes out of its pouch. The girl sees it, and her mouth opens wide, freezes in a silent scream of terror. "This one pleases you?" Hathor asks it.

It dances, slithers out as far as it can go without detaching and falling, and retreats. "Then you shall have it. Take it to the implantation chamber," she snaps at her guards, and they drag the girl away, her bare feet scrabbling fruitlessly against the smooth marble floor. The Great Lady watches as they go, until they turn a corner and vanish out of sight, and then turns to the Jaffa. "You may begin the ritual preparations. We will join you shortly for the ceremony."

"Very good, my Lady," he says, kneeling and bowing at her feet before departing, flanked by two of her personal guard. He has been a good servant, loyal and strong, her child's host. A pity he will have to die, but that is the way of a Jaffa's life.

And so, the symbiote leaves him and takes the girl for its own, and Hathor watches as her child rises from the silk-draped couch and takes her first steps in her new body. Her eyes flare yellow, once, before settling back, and she bows to her mother. Hathor smiles, pleased by the grace she displays. A child of Hathor must be beautiful and graceful above all things.

"My honored mother. All praise and love be to you."

"Our child. Does your new host please you?"

"It does."

"Very well. Kneel before us." The girl does as she is told, dropping to her knees, and Hathor holds out her hands for the robe her First Prime carries, taking it and draping it over her child's bare shoulders, letting the heavy folds pool carelessly on the ground. She considers for only a few moments. "Mehet-uret. They called us that, long ago. It is time our ancient name was used once more, and so shall you be." Her child looks up, her face rapt, and Hathor, with a sudden flash of understanding, realizes why the adoring eyes of this host seem so familiar. Her last beloved one, the giver of the code - he had had eyes much like these, had looked at her thus, with blind adoration, as he had fallen under her spell. Tau'ri.

She smiles once more, and strokes her child's cheek with something that is almost affection. With such a one for a father, of such a people, who had managed to resist even her - she is sure this one, Mehet-uret, will in time grow to be a powerful ruler.

But she will still have to keep careful control, and a watchful eye open. For though the children of Hathor must not be seen as weak, it would not do for them to exceed their progenitor, the Great Lady, the Mother and One who gave them life. No - that would not do at all. Should her offspring become too worthy an adversary, Hathor will not hesitate in striking her down, swiftly and cleanly and completely, as a limb severed by a sharp blade.

For Hathor's pride only extends so far.

 

**Daniel Dorani Jackson**

 

_Vala Mal Doran's tablet sent SG-1 - the new SG-1, and maybe they weren't quite as cool as the old one yet but they were still **Cam's** \- across the galaxy on a wild goose chase for Ancient treasure and God-only-knew what else, turning up trouble and dead ends wherever they went._

_Meanwhile, she'd insinuated herself comfortably into guest quarters on the base, to await any communication from Daniel and spend her last trimester. Two months passed, and nothing from Atlantis. Two and a half, and Vala was on her back on an infirmary bed, screaming red-faced at a flustered Cam and at the nurses and gasping in pain whenever a contraction hit. Interestingly, at that very moment, light years away - though none of them could have known then - the man partially responsible for what was causing those contractions was making much the same gasping noise as a Wraith dug its sharp nails into the flesh over his heart and prepared to feast._

_John Sheppard shot the Wraith and saved Daniel's life, and Daniel coughed and sucked in a ragged breath. Carolyn Lam unwound the umbilical cord from around the tiny neck and saved Daniel's son's life, and the baby coughed and sucked in a ragged breath. Unlike his father, he then promptly began to wail._

_Three nights later, Vala somehow gave base security the slip and disappeared - alone - through the Stargate. The next day, the doctor, her jaw set and her eyes troubled, filled in the baby's birth certificate, naming him after his father. Cam, rocking the fussing mini-Jackson in his arms, raised his eyebrows as he watched her pen the middle name in. The choice Vala had once mentioned. But he said nothing._

_Three weeks after that came a welcome communiqué from the Pegasus Galaxy. "We were in a bit of a sticky situation for a while - I'm sure you've read all about it in the report already - but on the whole, things aren't bad," ran Daniel's personal message. "You have no idea how huge a relief it is to be in contact again. Make sure to send lots of news - I want to know everything about what's going on back home. I honestly didn't think I would miss Earth this much, but I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder..."_

*

"Well. Don't you have me all surrounded."

Cam stares open-mouthed, quite frankly, because he's pretty sure he's never seen a pregnant lady in bondage gear before. She poses there at the top of the ramp, hand propped cockily on her right hip, and gives the room at large a wide, dazzling smile.

Beside him, the General clears his throat. "Welcome to the SGC. I'm General Landry, the leader of th-"

"Charmed." She strides down the ramp, and Cam fights the urge to take a step or two backwards and maybe another step or two to the side, because he does not feel incredibly secure standing at the bottom of an incline with that much stomach coming at him. "Vala, Vala Mal Doran. Thank you so much for the lovely greeting party, by the way. We all had a lovely time searching each other, didn't we, boys?" She throws a wink back at the accompanying airmen before pausing and giving Cam a not-at-all-subtle once-over. "I know we haven't met. That, I'm sure I would remember."

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell," says Landry, to spare Cam the trouble of introducing himself.

"Nice outfit," Cam says coolly, because besides introductions he isn't sure what else there is to say.

Obviously, though, that was the right thing, because it earns him a smile. "Thanks! Luckily, the material is quite stretchy." She pats her swollen belly, and winks again, this time at him. "Makes it easy to get into and out of." Cam blinks and says nothing, because now he can't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound inappropriate.

"Now, while I would normally be thrilled to have this much testosterone at my disposal...where's my Daniel? I have something rather important to tell him."

As she looks imperiously around, Landry says, with raised eyebrows, "I'm afraid you're a little late. Doctor Jackson isn't here."

"He isn't here." Vala crosses her arms. "Really? I mean, naturally I assumed he'd be the one to let me through your Stargate, since he's the only one of you I've ever actually met. Well, met as in 'spoken to', not as in 'zatted unconscious', otherwise the list would be a little longer." She looks around again. "Why am I under guard? You can't honestly think I'm capable of _anything_ at the moment."

"You _did_ once hijack one of our ships, Miss Mal Doran." Landry points out, scowling. "And whatever it was that was so important, I'm sure you can tell us."

Vala waves an impatient hand. "Oh, it was nothing much. Just that I had to tell him in person...I'm pregnant." Cam coughs uncomfortably. "Oh, and I've also got this rather interesting little trinket I thought he might like to take a look at, but as he isn't here..." She sighs dramatically. "I suppose I'll have to take my business elsewhere. Or perhaps just wait for him. You wouldn't mind that?"

"Doctor Jackson is currently en-route to another galaxy. He won't be back for at least another six months - likely longer."

"Months?" Vala rests a hand briefly, almost unconsciously on her belly, a short and surprisingly protective caress, but quickly drops it. The look of disappointment that plays across her features comes and goes in even less time. But Cameron is good at reading faces, and he feels a twinge of sympathy for this Vala Mal Doran. There's some real substance behind the swagger, it seems. "Oh. That's too bad. Daniel won't be here when his son is born."

"Excuse me?"

"His son." Both Landry and Cam stare at her, shell-shocked, and she clarifies, flippantly, " _Baby._ The thing that's currently making me look rather more convex than usual. Little, small person that grows into a big person over time. Surely you have them here on Earth? Or do you all spring fully-formed from your fathers'-"

"There's no need to take that attitude with me." Cam is reminded of an overstressed father scolding his errant teenage daughter. Vala's nose wrinkles. Obviously she recognizes it. "Perhaps we should find a more appropriate arena for this conversation. One that is _not_ the middle of the embarkation room."

Vala is strangely, pensively silent for most of the walk to the General's office. Until they reach the briefing room, and the General stalks on ahead into his domain, and Vala touches Cam's arm to stop him from following. "Colonel, may I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Has Daniel ever mentioned me? Said anything? I mean, I'm just curious. If he...kisses and tells. Some men do, you know. I'm sure you don't, but some do."

Cam barely knows the man. He'd been on-base with Daniel Jackson for a grand total of two days before he'd left, and had had exactly four conversations with him. But seeing the look on Vala's face, the eagerness she's obviously trying hard to hide, he takes pity on her.

"Yeah. Yeah, he did, actually. We got to talkin' and he mentioned he'd once known this woman named Vala, and that...she was really something."

This seems to satisfy her, and she favors him with an oddly tentative smile as he holds the office door open for her and then follows her inside, the door clicking shut behind them.

 

**Mira Livea Kane**

 

_"Unscheduled offworld activation." The young technician turned to Doctor Jackson, who stood quietly behind her, monitoring the situation. "It looks like a very old GDO-class IDC, sir. One that was issued to -" A window from the automatic search popped up, showing her the match. "To a Jarrod Kane, of the planet Tegalus, Priority Four, over twenty years ago."_

_"Jarrod Kane?" he murmured, one hand going up to comb absently but nervously though his shock of gray hair. He stared at the screen, and then up at the shimmering circle of the force shield over the event horizon. "Tegalus. It's been a long time."_

_"Shall we let him through, sir?" the tech asked hesitantly. She was new. She was not yet used to Doctor Jackson's habits of talking to himself, of quiet contemplation, turning ideas over and over in his mind rather than instantly barking out a command. Not immediately knowing what was to be done made her uncomfortable sometimes. But she waited, and the others waited with her, awaiting their orders, because once Doctor Jackson finally made up his mind, it was usually the right decision._

_Then Jackson's shoulders went back, his spine straightened, and he looked down at her. "Lower the shield, Sergeant."_

_She could barely get out her "Yes, sir" before he'd turned on his heel and left the control room, reappearing moments later at the door to the Gateroom and moving to stand confidently at the base of the ramp. The tech couldn't help but admire him - he usually looked like a vaguely confused old professor, wandering the base with untucked shirttails and piles of books and folders in his arms that he wouldn't let anyone else transport for him. Now, standing strong and straight-backed before the Stargate with his hands held casually at his sides, he looked like the legend he was - Daniel Jackson of SG-1, the very first SG-1, the only team designation ever to be retired as a mark of respect. The pioneers._

_With a touch of her palm, the shield went down, and she sent out the standard all-clear radio message, all frequencies. A minute later two people stepped out of the wormhole - an older man in a dark, severe uniform, slight and gray-haired and a bit stoop-shouldered, and a tall young woman, in the same uniform, with a head of red-blond curls and old-fashioned wire-rimmed spectacles perched on her nose._

_The comm system was open, and the control room could hear everything. "Jarrod," Doctor Jackson said, and stepped forward to shake the other man's hand. "Welcome to Earth. It's been a long time."_

_"Yes, it has," Jarrod Kane answered, quietly. "But we felt it was time to establish communications again. We have much to discuss. Many things have changed for the better on Tegalus - since you were last here."_

_"I'm glad to hear it."_

_Kane gestured to the young woman, a look of obvious pride on his face. "My daughter Mira Kane, recently appointed a Governmental Ambassador of the Caledonian Republic."_

_"I'm so pleased to finally meet you, Doctor Jackson," Mira Kane said as they shook hands._

_"The pleasure's all mine, Ambassador," answered Jackson automatically. "And...Republic, you say? What about Rand - what -"_

_"As I said - we have a lot to discuss," Kane repeated, with an incline of his head, his face betraying nothing._

*

Out-and-out war may be over, but Jarrod still spends a good deal of his time in the capital, helping to begin the long, arduous process of the reconstruction of both their cities and their government. He's often away from the country house for weeks at a time, and it seems as though every time he comes home, Leda is happier than ever to see him, and Mira has grown another two inches and learned another two hundred words.

He cherishes the time he is able to spend with her, and this evening is no different. Jarrod scoops her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest as he absently strokes the curly hair that blazes gold by the fireplace light. She cuddles into him, one thumb stuck in her mouth and the other hand tugging inquisitively at a button on his shirt. He makes an impatient noise and gently swats her little hand away before she pulls it off - it would just mean more work for Leda to do, and she has enough to concern herself with as it is.

Mira turns her big, round eyes up to his at the admonishment, and Jarrod feels a prickling of regret, as well as a sudden swell of affection for the little creature in his lap. Leda's daughter, and she looks exactly like her, her nose and her mouth and hair and even her freckles.

Except that Leda's eyes are brown, and this child he holds has eyes as blue as the sky. An inheritance from her father - seemingly the only physical trait she shares with him, something which Jarrod is thankful for.

Oh, he knows. And Leda knows he does, but they've never explicitly spoken of it. By the time they'd felt secure enough, both with each other and in the situation around them, to share a bed again, the thing had already been done, and he'd known it as soon as he'd touched her. The altered, softer curves of her body under his hands had told him the truth more plainly than her words ever could have. And he hadn't shouted, or stormed out, or struck her. No, he'd done something he never would have imagined himself doing in such a situation; something he _wouldn't_ have done several years earlier. He likes to think he's grown, that the rigors of war have made him a better and a stronger person, and that had been his chance to prove it, both to himself and to her.

"I love you," he'd murmured, and he'd held her, and forgiven her as her tears had drenched his chest. And ever since that day, he's tried to forget.

It makes it easier, knowing the Ring has been sealed and so the people from Earth will probably never return - knowing _he_ will never set foot here again. Daniel Jackson. The brave, the stubbornly idealistic, and though Jarrod knows he should hate the memory of the man who has taken a part of his wife from him he can never get back, he can't quite manage it. Because Daniel Jackson, despite his failings, was a good man, just as Leda, despite her momentary weakness, was a good woman. 

_Is_ a good woman.

"Dada girl," Mira says, jolting him back into the present, and that's something new. Leda must have helped her learn that while he was away. Jarrod bounces her a bit on his lap, grinning at her, and she dimples and giggles.

"Mimi is Dada's girl," he says, using the silly nickname she likes, and feels a bit foolish - he's never been very good with children in general. But it seems like whatever he does makes her happy, and it's a wonderful feeling. "Isn't she."

"She is," comes Leda's soft voice from behind him, and he feels the touch of her slim fingers on his shoulders, and cranes around to see her face - just to make sure she's looking at him, that her expression is not vacant, that her brown eyes are not staring softly off across space and time, toward something or someone only she can see.

 

**Khenti, Great Father of Nagada**

 

_His Baba had been so tall. Taller than most of the other fathers in the city, and Khenti had loved to ride on his shoulders, laughing and reaching up to pluck down a piece of sky, or touching the bumpy outlines of birds and lions and people high on the dark cavern walls, as his Baba had held his legs secure with one hand and held a torch aloft with the other._

_"Can you read that, Khenti? The bird and the mouth and the two reeds together -"_

_He had never understood the explanations, but he had listened anyway, because he had liked the sound of his father's excited, oddly accented voice, and how his shoulders had felt as solid as sitting on rock. Khenti had leaned forward, pressing his nose to his Baba's long hair and wrapping his arms around his forehead as his Baba had murmured to himself in his strange water language._

_And then, one morning, it all went away, and everything was different._

_Khenti just barely remembered his father's funeral - the body wound tightly in layers of fragrant linen and hardly looking like a person at all anymore, the hole in the sand it had disappeared into, the scales, made of precious metals rare on Abydos and only unwrapped and used after a death, and the white feather his grandfather had set into one bowl, proclaiming Dan'yel's heart to be true. Khenti remembered feeling confused but glad his Baba's heart was true, and remembered his mother crouching down and weeping into his hair, her tears hot and sticky._

_**Rockfall,** the people had whispered, mouth to ear, when they'd heard, and that way the news had spread. The men had gone to move the rocks, to help him if they could. Khenti had been kept inside, and the neighbor women had come over to pet him and feed him. He remembered his mother had not been the only one who had cried, though she had been the only one who'd screamed. Just once, when they told her. **Learning the secrets of the walls, and the cavern collapsed.**_

_Their cavern. The one they had been reading, together._

*

At the time when the setting sun is split in two by the horizon, the people of Nagada begin to gather in the hall of the Chappa'ai, laughing and talking together and warming themselves by the fire to banish the chill of encroaching night. They do this almost every evening - it is the time of day most of them, the children especially, look forward to. It is the time for tale-telling, and no one has as many tales to tell as their leader, their Great Father, Khenti.

He comes to the fire with little ceremony and takes his accustomed place, smiling gently at the old women who pat him affectionately on the head and back, smiling around at all of his people - the men who are mostly silent but always listen carefully, their hands stroking their chins...the young girls, who giggle and blush and whisper when Khenti looks their way, and their mothers, who scold them for it later...the children, thumbs in mouths, eyes round. They are the ones who never met his father, the foreign, pale man who came through the Chappa'ai and learned their language and became one of them, as though he had been desert-raised instead of born to them through water. Dan'yel, son to Great Father Kasuf, husband to Sha're, brother to Skarra who was taken by the gods too soon.

When Kasuf had died four seasons ago, the line of rulership had fallen to Sha're's still-young son - slim and light, dark-eyed and fine-boned, Khenti is the possessor of his father's gift with words as well as his mother's beauty. Or so the older women say.

"Peace, children of Abydos," he says, standing tall and straight and stretching his hands out towards them, and they greet him in return. "I have a tale for you this night told to me by my father, Dan'yel of the first world. A new story."

"New story!" The small children, sitting in the sand at his feet, wriggle in excitement. The adults try not to wriggle too much.

"It is the tale of a beautiful goddess named -" He clears his throat and enunciates carefully, so as not to trip over the unfamiliar name - "A-ma-ter-a-suh, and how she shut herself into a cave and stole sunlight from the world."

A shiver goes through the crowd as they digest this. For a desert people, his father would say, the idea of a world without a sun is unthinkable, and therefore fascinating.

"A-ma-ter-a-suh was sun goddess of a place named Jah-pan - a beautiful land, surrounded by a great expanse of blue salty water and covered in mountains and fertile green fields and trees with blossoming flowers. She was glorious and beautiful, with long black hair as the people of that land had, and robes of all colors in the world. From her all light and warmth emanated throughout Jah-pan, and the people worshiped her. But her brother, the terrible god of storms, treated her with great disrespect - one day, he drank too much wine and became drunk, and in a rage, he trampled on and destroyed her green harvest fields, and defiled her sacred temples. She begged her brother to stop, but he would not listen, and even threw the corpse of a great animal at her weaving handmaidens, whose loom broke into pieces and killed them. A-ma-ter-a-suh was so angry and grieved by this, she shut herself into her heavenly cave and blocked the entrance with a great coverstone."

"Like the Chappa'ai!" one of the children exclaims, and is met with a chorus of laughs and 'shush'es. But Khenti smiles.

"Yes, like the Chappa'ai. And since she had shut herself in, all the light and warmth was taken from Jah-pan. The people cried out in cold and misery, and their crops began to die."

As he continues to speak, his eyes travel slowly over the many familiar faces before lighting on the one he is searching for - his mother's. Sha're, her shawl wrapped around herself, sits curled in the shadow of a pillar and listens, silently, as she always does. She knows this story already. The look of rapt attention on her face is not for the sun goddess.

When the tale and the talking are finished, Khenti creeps silently out of the main hall to lean against the doorway and look out on the moonlit desert. The constellations of high summer have risen - the rock dragon, the water bearer, the rearing mastadge, the hunter with his spear whom the children call Oneel; all the ones Khenti has grown familiar with from childhood on. Behind him, the great fire burns low, and only a few people remain. Most of them, the families with children and the young couples, have taken themselves off to their own dwellings, and only the old men are left, sipping from bowls of moonshine and talking quietly amongst themselves.

"My son," Sha're says, touching him on the shoulder, and he turns and looks down. In the night light, softer than the light of day, all the little lines of pain and of living seem to have melted away, and she looks like she must have looked as a girl. When barely older than he is now, she had been the beauty of the city, given in marriage to a man from another world, leading an uprising against the way of life her people had known for centuries and never known to be wrong. She has had a hard life, but she has been strong for him all along, through droughts and bouts of city-wide sickness and as he negotiated his way through tense situations with rival tribes.

More than anything, it has been his mother's wisdom that has helped him along his path. But he can only wonder - had he had the wisdom of both his mother and his father growing up, would things be different now?

"Come, my son," his mother chides, half-joking. She smooths back a lock of his hair and adjusts the sleeve of his robe, and he lets her fuss. He will never be just the leader of the city to her, but always the little Khenti she gave birth to. He is barely old enough to be a real father, let alone a Great one - he is tolerably sure he will never be a Great Father in his own mind, either. "You are always lost in your thoughts." _Just like your Baba_ goes unspoken. Khenti has heard it enough times, all his life.

"Not lost." He smiles down upon her, and for one with the force of a sandstorm within her, it does not seem right that she looks so small. He takes her hand, and thinks he sees another hand upon his mother's, the sweep of a robe sleeve, broad yet insubstantial shoulders flanking hers. The image of a man long-gone; something he has half-imagined he could see since childhood. Like the shadows of the moons on the open desert, Dan'yel is indistinct, seen only out of the corner of his eye or over his shoulder - when Khenti looks up to see the smiling face, Dan'yel vanishes silently and completely into air, as though he never was. So Khenti keeps his eyes averted and, like another story his father had told him once, does not look back, and simply trusts that he is still there. "Never lost. I just...need to disappear for a while, sometimes."

"I know." She leans her cheek on his shoulder and looks out across the desert. The horizon is a dim shimmering haze. "The storm season is almost upon us again. Perhaps two days." She sighs. "The years pass so quickly. I remember, when you were small, and you wandered out into the storm..."

Khenti nods. "And Baba went out to look for me and found me with the nursing babies in Grandfather's mastadge pen."

Sha're laughs at the memory. Khenti imagines he hears the ghost of Dan'yel laugh as well.

*

**Author's Note:**

> This was an exercise in writing different tones/styles and POVs, and also me wanting to poke a bit at some episodes and spin them off into 'what-if?' AUs. 
> 
> Note on the Hathor section - I fudged the symbiote aging process a little in order to have it come to maturity while the original SG-1 was still a functioning field unit (Jack in particular. He's getting on in years). I figure - if it's Daniel's DNA, the Goa'uld can be precocious. Call it the symbiote equivalent of three Ph.D.s before the age of thirty.
> 
> Note on the Abydos section - Khenti is approximately 17-18 Earth years old.


End file.
